To my mind, these regulations are discriminatory. At the end of our last meeting, we heard Mr. Poilievre say that nothing serious had ever happened as a result of these regulations and that they did not need to be applied. But what it boils down to is this: if regulations are discriminatory, even if they have never been applied, even if no one has complained thus far and even if no discrimination has occurred, those regulations should still not be allowed to exist in Canada, as my colleague pointed out. We are an open-minded country that has, in the past, shown its openness to transgendered and transsexual individuals.
I have an interesting story I'd like to share. When I lived in Sherbrooke, I had a gay roommate from Brazil. Sherbrooke has a large Brazilian community, and it doesn't take long to realize that many of them are gay. My roommate told me that gay people in Brazil want to live in Quebec because they know we are an open society, where they will not be discriminated against and where they will be accepted.
I am not sure if these regulations went unnoticed by the government, but they are discriminatory. We should adopt my colleague's motion and change that. It is wrong to say we have regulations that are discriminatory but we don't use them very much so we'll keep them, and if we ever run into any problems, we'll see what happens at that point. We must be proactive.
There has been recognition that these regulations discriminate against certain individuals, transsexuals and transgendered people. The government has a responsibility to act now, and not wait.
That's all, thank you.